


it's the early A.M. and, suddenly, you're here

by choirboyharem



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: M/M, Phone Sex, Season/Series 05
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-25
Updated: 2019-07-25
Packaged: 2020-07-19 12:59:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19974472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/choirboyharem/pseuds/choirboyharem
Summary: Bruce gets a strange call in the dead of night and immediately mishandles it, much to the caller's delight.





	it's the early A.M. and, suddenly, you're here

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this in maybe an hour, threw it on tumblr under this same username (you can say hi if you want), and now i'm posting it here. it's stupid as fuck and i only wrote it because i was listening to gorgeous by tswift and couldn't stop thinking about jeremiah drunk-dialing bruce and being gross. this is set kind of generically just shortly before the events of 5x01 or somewhere around there. i'm also literally blacked-out on most details from season five because it fills me with righteous indignation, so if i got any details wrong or weird, my bad.

It was still dark when Bruce woke up again. He could feel the ache from his overexertion from the past twelve hours settling into his bones immediately, memories of narrowly escaping snapping teeth and knives and fists from some brutish gang hitting him again with all the same fatigue he’d tried to sleep off—

He checked the clock on the front of the buzzing cellphone on the table next to him. 

—barely forty-five minutes ago. 

It was only dulled but awful panic that filled Bruce, because there was no way anyone could’ve been trying to contact him at one in the morning unless there was something terribly wrong. Maybe it was Jim. Maybe, somehow, it was Selina. 

The caller ID read ‘Unknown’. Bruce looked at it warily before closing his eyes and answering the call. 

“Who is this?” Bruce asked, his voice thick and heavy as he rolled onto his back, threading his free fingers through his hair as if he were trying to keep his head on straight. 

"Oh, _Bruce,_ I can’t believe you picked up!” a syrupy voice gushed on the other end of the line. “You missed me, didn’t you! I knew it. I was—I was certain of it. Of course. Of course. I know you _intimately._ ” It was punctuated with a fit of giggling that sounded like nails on a chalkboard to Bruce, making him cringe. At least he was awake immediately, though. He sat up, feeling a knife twist in his chest.

“Jeremiah?” Bruce sat up, swallowing hard and feeling his fingernails dig into his palms. He hadn’t heard that voice in weeks. It made his heart thud oddly as his insides twisted with mingling anger and heartache, a hot, sickly combination. 

“You lucky, lucky boy, you guessed right on the first try! I knew you would. You’re so brilliant. Have I ever told you that? How clever you are?” Jeremiah sounded dreamy and dripping with honey, sticky-sweet and slurred. “Bruce—sweetheart, I’ve missed you so deeply. I’ve missed you tenderly. It’s as though we’ve been separated for a lifetime. It’s like a prayer being answered, hearing your voice again,” he sighed out. 

The tone of it almost made Bruce lose his train of thought, because it sounded entirely too full of pleasure and it made his stomach churn to hear it right against his ear. He tried to shake it off. 

“Where are you?” Bruce tried to fight against the sleep that was still clouding his voice. It was hoarse and already unbalanced from his animosity. “Tell me where you are.” 

“Oh, no, I can’t, not yet! I’m still planning your surprise. It’s a present for you,” Jeremiah said, his voice hushed and full of mirth. “It’s all for you, Bruce. I can’t tell you anything about it yet. It would completely ruin it when you see it. I can’t wait until you get to see it.”

“What are you planning?” Bruce asked, trying to control his tone, his teeth clenching. He would’ve done anything not to get involved in whatever game Jeremiah was trying to play with him. 

And _more_ than anything not to listen to Jeremiah while he was clearly not quite sober. 

“Bruce, did you not hear what I just said? I told you how brilliant you are. Please, don’t try to act like you’re not; it makes you significantly less interesting and attractive. I’m sure that brainless, rabid little slut who licks your shoes likes it because she finds it easier to keep up with,” Jeremiah said lazily, his sentence breaking up in another, shuddering sigh, “but you don’t have to play such an undignified role when you’re talking to me. You’re better than that. You’re better than her.” 

Jeremiah made a noise that sounded like a moan and Bruce felt, in a word, stricken.

“What are you doing?” he asked, his voice sounding weaker than he wanted it to. He couldn’t even take a second to feel irritated and upset on Selina’s behalf. 

“Thinking of you,” Jeremiah said, exhaling. “As I always do. I’ve thought about you day and night, Bruce. If I didn’t know any better, I might call it torture. I’ve been dedicating all my time, resources, loyal followers, and manpower to creating a new reality for you. For Gotham. For your— _our_ —city.”

“What are you talking about?” Bruce tried desperately to focus on what Jeremiah was saying instead of what he was doing. He couldn’t think of the latter. He wouldn’t. “What do you mean, creating a new reality? Do you just mean more of your torture? Trying to bring something out in me that’s supposed to make me sympathize with you?”

“Bruce, torture is such a strong word. I tried to open your mind. I tried to make you realize your potential. I can’t believe you still don’t realize that I was only doing it for your benefit. You are _so_ stubborn, aren’t you? You’re going to kill yourself from stress someday, I’m sure of it, and it is going to break my heart. Oh, and because we’re apparently so fond of the third degree tonight, may I ask you just one question?” Jeremiah collapsed momentarily into giggles again. “What are you wearing?” 

“Just tell me what you want me to hear, Jeremiah,” Bruce snapped, what little patience he’d had wearing thin from his discomfort, frustration, and odd little jumps in his chest from every time he heard Jeremiah make a sound (what?). “I don’t want to do this with you. Whatever this is.” 

“How I love that tone of yours,” Jeremiah said breathlessly. “You look beautiful when you’re angry, you know. There’s such bright life in your eyes. Passion and care and fierce, undeserved love for everyone and everything you try so hard to protect, even if you destroy just as much as you try to create. You darling atom bomb.” He moaned again and it tapered off into a pathetic whine. Bruce felt himself blush, hidden by the darkness in the tiny apartment. “Of course, I do wish, at times, that you were kinder to me. That I got to hear your laugh. Do you remember the night we talked for so long that we saw the sun rise over the trees? You laughed that wonderful laugh when I pointed it out. I'm sure you remember. I know you do.” 

Bruce did remember and he wished he didn’t, because it hurt. Especially because Jeremiah was talking about it while he was drunk and touching himself and, oh. That was why he’d called, wasn’t it? 

And Bruce should have just tried to trace the call, his exhaustion be damned. He should’ve just tried to demand answers from Jeremiah. Make threats he was determined to follow through on. Bring Jeremiah to justice at last after the man had thrown Gotham into a veritable hellscape and ruined thousands of lives. 

But Bruce didn’t do any of that for reasons he couldn’t explain. He clutched at his phone, his breathing shallow. “You’re disgusting,” he uttered. “Absolutely disgusting.”

Which made Jeremiah whimper, a soft, needy sound that sent an awful shiver through Bruce. “Yes,” Jeremiah murmured. “Oh, _God,_ yes. Bruce—I need to ask you something else.”

“What?”

“I want you to imagine for me, just for a moment, if I was there with you. If you had me exactly where you were dying to have me. If I was there, what would you do to me?” 

Bruce felt as though things were slightly tilted. Like he wasn’t fully in touch with reality and his thoughts and his actions didn’t belong to him. His hand clenched in the threadbare blanket underneath him. He licked his lips, his eyes fluttering shut again. What was he doing? And _not_ doing? “I would. . .” he said quietly, “I would subdue you. Force your onto your knees and kick you in the chest so you forgot to breathe for a moment. I still have to make you pay for what you’ve done to this city. What you’ve done to everyone.”

“ _Yes_ ,” Jeremiah said again, this time sounding like a hiss, sharp and low. “Fuck. What else would you do? What would you do to me?”

“I'd hit you.” Bruce could see the image in his mind in brilliant color. He could see the blood splattering onto his glove and ruining Jeremiah’s pale makeup. Red on white, stark and dramatic. “I’d hit you until I saw you bleed. You’d bruise and you’d think about what you’ve done when you saw it later. I’d be above you, holding you down so you couldn’t struggle.”

“Oh my God, Bruce.” Jeremiah sounded like he was broken, his voice cut into pieces. It wasn’t from the cell reception. “Please, I want you to, I want you to make me bleed. I want you. I want to see myself on you. My blood, my everything. I want you to make me come undone.”

With a stab of horror and revulsion, Bruce had to push his hand between his legs, pressing against himself. This wasn’t right. This was the furthest thing from right that anything had ever been. 

“I’d make you beg.” Bruce barely recognized his own voice. “I would make you beg for me to stop. Or keep going. I’d give you what I felt you deserved. You’d take all of it, your punishment, all the pain I’d put you through, because you’re not worth anything better than that. I’d hit you hard enough for it to break something inside you, just so I could hear you scream, because you’re repulsive, Jeremiah.” 

Jeremiah gasped and swore again. “For you, Bruce, I will be! I will— _ngh_.” He lost his ability to speak for a moment. “I will, I will, and I’ll love you all the same. I’ll let you do _anything_ to me, Bruce; tell me, would you choke me?” 

“Yes,” Bruce whispered. His fingers, slick with saliva, curled around his cock, his pants shoved to his thighs. Defeat had never been more easily admitted. _He_ was disgusting, in the truest sense of the word. Guilt already burned in his throat. “I’d put my hands around your throat. I’d leave behind marks in the shapes of my fingers. I’d feel your heartbeat under my hand and it wouldn’t matter to me.”

He made a mistake and wasn’t able to bite back his trembling whine. He covered his mouth immediately, his blush worsening. He heard Jeremiah’s tiny, high-pitched laugh.

“Why, Bruce, you _did_ miss me, didn’t you?” Jeremiah practically purred, even though he still sounded desperate and short of breath. “I knew you did. I know you’ve been thinking about me. Has all of it been so dirty? I do forget, you’re still a teenager; that’s all too natural.”

“I haven’t,” Bruce managed. “Not in the way you’ve been thinking about me.” His protest wasn’t really doing him much good, because Jeremiah could still hear him and everything he was doing, but at least there was some shred of pride in it. (Not even a little.) He dragged his hand up, squeezing around his cock, his mouth falling open as his hips snapped to meet his touch.

“Bruce, as much as I adore you, I must admit, you’re a dreadful liar. What have you been thinking about, you horrible, lovely, lonely boy? Is it cold there, living alone with your manservant in that dreadful, drafty apartment complex with the bullet holes in the bedroom wall next to the window? I’m sure you could use a warm mouth and a gentle touch to help you feel more at home so you won’t miss your extravagant, unnecessary luxuries so much.”

Bruce’s heart suddenly leapt to his mouth. 

Jeremiah knew where he was. If anything was going to force him to stop, it was that. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said flatly, his fingers pulling away from himself. 

“I’m sure you don’t,” Jeremiah said with another laugh that turned into another moan: “God, _fuck_. Ah, Bruce, I know where you are. I know every place you’ve been. As I’ve said, I know you _intimately_.”

“Where are you?” Bruce snarled, angry with himself for getting distracted so successfully. “Jeremiah, tell me where you are!”

“Only if you talk to me. Keep talking to me. Help me before I help you. As any good friend would.”

Bruce really did want nothing more than to strangle Jeremiah right now. “I’d choke you out until you were struggling to breathe,” he said between his teeth. “I’d pull you up just enough to slam your head back down against the floor and I’d spill more of your blood. You’d be slick with it. Your vision would cloud and you’d feel lightheaded and sick. And it wouldn’t be enough for you. Even if I took you and ruined you and hurt you beyond repair, you couldn’t be any worse than you are right now.”

“That’s it,” Jeremiah gasped out. “Oh, _Bruce_ —” There was an aching sob on the other end of the line, then soft, gentle panting. 

It made Bruce twitch and almost slip his hand down to touch himself again. He didn’t. He withdrew his hand. 

“Tell me,” he demanded. “I need to know where you are.”

“You’ll see soon, Bruce. Just wait. It’s going to be very, very special. I can’t wait to see you again, darling; I’m sure Jack wishes he had half the girl in Rose that I do in you.”

After another dazed, idiotic giggle, the line went dead, leaving Bruce alone in the dark. 


End file.
